Wednesday, April 09, 2008

"It's not about the cross..." What? WHAT?

I was gonna write something funny about my MRI experience today, but when I got home, flipped on the TV in time to hear Oprah say that the purpose of Jesus is not the cross. She used to believe His purpose was to die on the cross for her sins, but now she knows (cuz she's Awake - notice the capital A)she realizes he was here to show us how to live in Presence. To be in Aware.

Again, she's having "religious" people get up and speak about how Tolle's A NEW EARTH doesn't conflict with "religion". Spiritual expert Elizabeth Lesser defines spirituality as the longing for something more. She claims religion grew up around this longing seeking fulfillment.

Again, while they are trying to use the name of Jesus in a nice way, they are stripping Him of His identity, His purpose. Jesus is God. Jesus is God. Jesus is God.

You can't embrace His teachings without accepting Him in full context. He didn't just come to die on the cross, true. He came to DEFEAT death. He came to leave behind an empty cross, come back to life after paying the ultimate price for our sin.

It's so easy to call Jesus a teacher, a prophet or even a wise guru if you don't believe in absolute truth or the authority of scripture. It makes me sad that the big O and Tolle are taking extra steps to convince or confuse followers of Christ.

Know your Bible. Sure, Tolle has some true ideas, some common sense psychological theories, but don't be fooled into releasing your belief in the deity of Christ. It's a slow subtle (and boring) process through the book. I'm still reading. Slowly. Not because there's so much to chew on, but because the writing is so bad, so ambiguous and dull, I struggle to remain engaged.

One more thing before I fall off my soapbox and hurt my other knee... (the MRI was on my left knee)...

Tolle doesn't believe in death - he beleives your energy lives on b/c there's no place for it to go. Form goes away and remember, form isn't real. Again, on what authority does he base this theory? If there is no death, then Jesus couldn't redeem us from our sins.

A NEW EARTH, on a deep level, goes against everything we as Christ Followers believe.

2 comments:

WordVixen said...

Yeesh. Oprah's amazing ability to be deluded is one of the many reasons that I just don't listen to her. At all. Ever. I've been planning for years a nice way to tell my future agent/editor "no, I don't want to go on Oprah".

The other reason is her poor taste in literature. I'd be embarrassed to be her pick! Although, the money...

It's bad enough that people will write anything to assuage the guilt of others (No forgiveness of sin? No sin!), but it's far worse for them to obtain a platform that millions follow blindly.

Jan Parrish said...

Oh, I missed your post. I also blogged about this! Check mine out. I'll link you.

Is it just me or does he creep you out too?